Luis Rubiales due in court today over Hermoso kiss

Former Spanish football federation president Luis Rubiales will appear before a High Court judge on Friday over a complaint of sexual assault stemming from his allegedly unsolicited kiss on the lips of player Jenni Hermoso.

The events of 20 August eclipsed the national team's Women's World Cup victory in Sydney and led to protests similar to the Me Too movement, prompting other women to come forward with reports of sexist treatment and assaults.

Rubiales, 46, has maintained that the kiss was mutual and consensual. After weeks of resisting calls for him to step down as president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Rubiales, already suspended by FIFA, finally quit on 10 September.

But he remains unrepentant.

"I am a good person, that in a moment of maximum happiness, with consent, asking beforehand...In truth, there can be no other intention than the celebration and the joy itself," he told Piers Morgan in an interview on Sunday.

He likened the celebratory atmosphere in Sydney to winning a lottery or seeing a war ending, situations in which he said "people don't ask permissions".

Deputy prime minister Yolanda Diaz has called his actions "shameful" and said they showed that male chauvinism was still systemic in Spanish society.

On 8 September, prosecutor Marta Durantez Gil filed a complaint with the High Court against Rubiales after Hermoso told prosecutors that Rubiales kissed her on the mouth without her consent while holding her head with both hands at the medal ceremony.

The prosecutor added a possible crime of coercion after Hermoso said she and her relatives were put under pressure by Rubiales and his entourage to say that she "justified and approved what happened".

Judge Francisco de Jorge is in charge of an